Honeywell RTH7600D 7 Day Touchscreen Programmable Thermostat

Best Price for the Honeywell RTH7600D

Price and Compatibility

The Honeywell RTH7600D 7 Day Touchscreen Programmable Thermostat is a great value device. It retails on Amazon for less than $70. In nearly every aspect the Honeywell RTH7600D is similar to the more expensive Honeywell RTH8500D 7 Day Touchscreen Programmable Thermostat. There are only two differences between the two devices. Firstly, the Honeywell RTH7600D has a slightly smaller touchscreen interface and secondly, the Honeywell RTH7600D doesn’t have a vacation mode.

The great thing about Honeywell programmable thermostats is that they are virtually universally compatible and the Honeywell RTH7600D digital thermostat is no exception. It can handle heating only, cooling only, central air, 2 wire hydronics systems and gas. It can also regulate up to 2 stages of heating and cooling and heat pumps with auxiliary heat. And it can regulate the fan to better circulate the warm/cool air around a room. Like all Honeywell thermostats the Honeywell RTH7600D can be hardwired into the HVAC to draw its power from the mains supply. This eliminates the need for batteries.

Features

Furthermore, the Honeywell RTH7600D has smart response or adaptive
intelligent recovery as it is also called. This is a great feature that
keeps track of the changing weather conditions and uses this information
to pre-heat or pre-cool a room. Thus, at the start of a programmed
period the room temperature is just as you want it. This feature takes
the guesswork out of trying to set the HVAC to go off a few minutes
before you wake up or get back from work. It is a function that greatly
adds to the comfort of a home and also helps to make a home more energy
efficient because it is more cost effective to slowly rise or lower the
room temperature rather than having the HVAC working at full and then
having to make further corrections.

Like all good programmable thermostats the Honeywell RTH7600D has a
program slot for each day of the week and 4 periods per day. This is the
industry standard for making sure that you can fit the heating and
cooling in your house with your schedule. This prevents heating/cooling
empty homes and also allows the user to take advantage of cheaper
off-peak electricity.

Another great feature of the Honeywell RTH7600D is that it has auto
change-over. This is a feature that detects the changing of the seasons
and automatically switches between heating and cooling for you.

Other features include a filter change warning and a battery change
warning. The display is a touchscreen which has Honeywell’s easy to
understand intuitive, menu driven programming. The touchscreen is
backlit. For added convenience the unit can be removed from the wall for
armchair programming.

Another useful feature of the Honeywell RTH7600D is that it keeps real
time and even keeps your settings after a power outage. The real time
display also keeps track of daylight saving changes for you.

Reviews

This thermostat has many reviews on Amazon – over 100. And the
overwhelming response is positive. People with few exceptions found the
Honeywell RTH7600D straight forward to install and easy to program.
Reviewers are nearly unanimous in saying that the Honeywell RTH76500D
does a good controlling the heating/cooling in a home.

The only issue that a number of people mentioned was the backlight. You
have to press the touchscreen interface to activate the backlight. This
means you also activate some change to your settings which you must then
cancel. The backlight necessitates more than one touch.

Although not mentioned by reviewers, one possible drawback with the Honeywell RTH7600D is that it doesn't have a vacation mode. You have to change your programmed settings if you go away for a few days. If you want vacation mode you need to go to the next model up - the Honeywell RTH8500D 7 Day Touchscreen Programmable Thermostat.

Click Here to read the Amazon reviews of the Honeywell RTH7600D 7 Day Touchscreen Programmable Thermostat.

Swing Control

Like all Honeywell programmable thermostats the Honeywell RTH7600D is
accurate to +/- 1°F. And the auto change-over function means that
regardless of the season the heating or cooling will immediately come on
to maintain the set-point temperature. Other programmable thermostats
use swing control to allow the user to set up a range (normally within 2
or 4 degrees) within which the thermostat doesn’t activate the HVAC
systems. This allows small fluctuations in room temperature to go
without a response. The result is that the air-con, furnace etc. is not
continually short cycling to keep up with these small changes in room
temperature. Honeywell prefers to use another system that sets a limit
on the number of cycles the heating/cooling does in an hour. This system
works fine as long as you are not living in a very hot or very cold
climate.

Conclusion

For people who want a touchscreen programmable thermostat but have a
budget under $100 the Honeywell RTH7600D is a very attractive device. It
has lots of great features and is guaranteed to help you make big
reductions in your heating and cooling bills. The absence of a vacation
mode and temporary hold is a minor inconvenience as it requires extra programming to get around not having thee features. The same is the case with the absence of a separate
backlight button. If you are concerned about swing control it is worth
looking at the Lux Products TX9000TS – a similar device that has swing
control.

List of Features on the Honeywell RTH7600D

7 Day programming and 4 periods per day

Smart response / Intelligent adaptive recovery

Auto change-over

Compatible with up to 2 stage heating and 2 stage cooling and heat pumps with auxiliary heat